Walking Into The Arena
by deletrear
Summary: Whoever said the dead tell no tales had never considered the existence of banshees before.


Words: 5,211

Warnings: Fem!Harry Potter! Genius children who are unnerving! Future mentions of child abuse, non-typical canon violence, OOC characters, aaaaand... Fem!Harry Potter, just to be sure.

Notes: Rewrite of 'Interstellar Dust' because I discovered something called 'canon timeline/s' and lemme tell you, that kind of shit can really rock your world when you aren't prepared to deal with it. If Harry seems OOC, it's because this is Lydia's POV. Harry thinks a lot of important thoughts and refuses to give voice to them. It is also possible that I'm not that great at characterizing Harry. It's pretty damn possible, actually.

Fandom/s: Teen Wolf & Harry Potter

Title: walking into the arena

Summary: Whoever said the dead tell no tales had never considered the existence of Banshees before. Or a bored Harry Potter living vicariously through a teenage prom queen. [Fem!Harry. Genfic. MOD!Harry.] [Re-write of 'Interstellar Dust']

* * *

o.o.o

* * *

By the time Lydia Martin is 8, she is already fluent in French.

These days, when she isn't at school charming her teachers with her pigtails and her dimples, she has her nose buried in either 'Spanish for Beginners!' books or multiple bricks on theoretical mathematics.

("Different sources improve credibility," Lydia had recited verbatim to her father, who probably didn't even hear her over the crisis his wallet was having over the price of the books, but sometimes, thing needs to be said. Even if they aren't heard.)

The former is easier than the latter, but also significantly less exciting, so Lydia ends up giving herself headaches trying to wrap her mind around the Riemann hypothesis—

(... _Thus, if the hypothesis is correct, all the non-trivial zeros lie on the critical line consisting of the complex numbers 1 / 2 + i t, where t is a real number and i is the imaginary unit ..._ )

—rather than wasting time getting her throat to differentiate the word _mama_ from _mamá_. Still. Lydia has read before that it's important to take breaks from study to prevent yourself from burning out, which is probably the only reason she's still teaching herself Spanish. When the difficulty in math rises exponentially—

(Exponential. Noun. When in relation to mathematics, means: the constant _e_ raised to the power equal to a given expression. Or, as it means in this context: any positive constant raised to a power.)

—the Spanish works as a balm. A _de-stressor_.

… Which technically isn't even a real word because it isn't in any dictionaries Lydia's checked (she's checked a lot) but she likes what her Mom tells her it means, Oxford Dictionary approved or not. De-stressor is a theoretical word, Lydia thinks, and if it were a real word, it'd be a verb. A doing word.

(And if she isn't sure? There's always the scientific method. Aim, hypothesis, experiment, discussion.

Aim: _Could the theoretical word 'de-stress' be considered a verb?_

Hypothesis: _Well, obviously_.

Experiment: _Used the theoretical word 'de-stress' as a verb to observe whether it sounded right._

Results: _Lydia likes de-stressing; Lydia de-stresses._

Conclusion: _The results supported the hypothesis. Yay!_ )

((Though she guesses it would be an adjective as well? Though that's an entirely different experiment...))

There's a knock on her door, practically kicking Lydia out of her daydreams. Her Mom is smiling at the door, her hand on someone's fluffy head. "You have some friends who miss you, Lydia,"

Lydia checks the fluffy head again. The fluffy head has a pair of brown eyes, tanned skin, and dimples. Lydia shoots up from her bed and hopes desperately that all the books on her bed go unnoticed. "Danny!"

"Hi, Lyds. Jackson's outside. Wanna play tag with us?"

Lydia isn't very good at running. Jackson and Danny are very good at running. One thing they all have in common is their competitiveness, and the little Martin was hardly going to go into the game disadvantaged. Lydia puts her hands on her hips, "I'm not getting sweaty! I'll come out if we play something else!"

Danny frowns. "But Jackson's it."

"Then I'm not playing with you."

Danny frowns _harder_. "What do you wanna play then? We don't have any toys,"

"I have plenty of toys," Lydia reminds him primly, "We'll play board games and have lemonade and stay inside. I'm not getting sweaty."

Lydia's played every single board game in this house enough times that she could beat her father at chess with her eyes closed.

Danny slumps. Lydia's Mom sighs at Lydia (What did she do now?!) and then pets Danny's fluffy hair. "I'll make some pink lemonade for you kids," She says brightly, with that fake smile she usually reserves for when she's talking to clients, Mrs. McKinley-their-neighbor-with-the-dog, or situations where she wants the room cleared so she can be cross with Lydia.

(The last time she pulled that face, all of Lydia's cousins were corralled into the kitchen in a timely manner. Next thing Lydia was aware, she was being lectured on how it was 'impolite to attempt to educate your father's cousins on the mathematical impossibility of spontaneous teleportation when both of them are government agents.' Whatever _that_ meant.)

Lydia beams at Danny, dimples vs. dimples, and says, "I'll go with you to get Jackson!"

Her Mom's lips purse even more, but Danny looks overjoyed and grabs her hand, so it isn't like she can say anything. "Thank you, Mrs. Martin!" Danny tells her Mom, as absurdly polite as ever, but it softens her Mom up, which is nice.

"I'll get the board games out as well, should I? Make sure Jackson doesn't bring any dirt inside!"

"Okay, Mom!"

"And don't think I don't know what you're doing, Lydia! Be nicer to your friends!"

How does she always know? Oh, well. She'll forget to corner Lydia about it later, so Lydia's off the hook. She's a genius.

(Checkmate. Noun. Chess. Definition: an act or instance of maneuvering the opponent's king into a check from which it cannot escape, thus bringing the game to a victorious conclusion. Alternative definition: Lydia being her typical clever self and avoiding a lecture from her Mom on how to treat her friends.)

* * *

o.o.o

* * *

"How's our intel?"

"Coming up as clean as an anonymous source can, I suppose. Not that that really means much, though, does it?"

"Thanks for the vote of confidence, Higgins."

"I'm just saying, a bit of caution would be wise— _not_ that I'm questioning your authority, ma'am—"

"By all means, question away. If you have doubts, Higgins, you are perfectly welcome to voice them. If you don't have a good feeling, you can watch the equipment. That's not a dig at you. But you and I both know that the presence of the nest can't be _ignored_ by the Office, not—"

"—'when we've acknowledged that we have received the tip,' yes, you've told me. And I understand that we have to be here! I do, I do,"

"Really? Because it sounds to me like you're trying your hardest to get us _out_ of here."

"I can't help that something feels wrong, okay? Something just… doesn't feel right here. It isn't safe."

"There's a nest of vampires nearby, Higgins. Frankly, I'd be concerned if felt any other way except 'imminently dangerous to the point where the thought of the operation is imperative to my health.' Worry is good, though. Healthy. Gets you home at the end of your shift."

"Ma'am—"

"It'll be better for that impending stress ulcer if you watch the equipment, Higgins. I'll take the rest of the squad to investigate. Actually… here, take this."

"... Ma'am, this is a shard of glass."

"Right you are, Higgins, excellent observation. However, on top of being a brilliant makeshift shank, it has the slightly less makeshift function of being a two-way mirror. You can communicate with whoever has the other mirror—that'd be Ron, Ron Weasley—by saying their name. If the feeling gets worse or I don't check in after 45 minutes, call for back-up. Got it?"

"Understood. ...But I still don't feel good about this. Ma'am, are you sure you'll just be investigating?"

"Wouldn't engage if my life depended on it."

"That's not funny."

"Erm… sounded better in my head. Moving on. Call him if you hear nothing from me after 45 minutes. No sooner. No later. Better to be safe than sorry."

* * *

o.o.o

* * *

Lydia wakes feeling like she didn't sleep at all.

She showers half-dead and drags her feet towards the kitchen. School day. She can't skip today, or even arrive late at all, since she has math first up. They're on baby concepts right now but handling numbers, no matter how simple they are, always makes Lydia feel better. And she can't handle numbers if she hasn't had breakfast—it's the most important meal of the day!—so sleeping in isn't an option.

Much as Lydia really wishes it was.

Her Mom has a plate of eggs, bacon and toast set for her already. As soon as Lydia pulls herself into her seat, she's handed a glass of pulpy orange juice. "Are you okay?"

"Tired," Lydia grumbles, either aloud or mentally, she can't really tell. She nearly falls asleep face-first in her bacon.

Her Mom gives her a nice pet on the head that Lydia enjoys way too much. She's 8. She's too big for head pets. "Bad dream?"

Lydia mumbles something that is vaguely a negative. "Just tired. Where's Dad?"

Mom continues carding her fingers through Lydia's hair. "He's on the phone with his cousin."

"Uncle Jordan?"

"Aunt Molly."

"Aunt Molly is Dad's _second_ cousin," Lydia says, appalled that her Mom has forgotten this. There is a big difference between _cousin_ and _second cousin_. Then what her Mom has said to her sinks in. " _Aunt Molly_ called Dad?"

Aunt Molly only calls Dad when there's a big family thing going on. Aunt Molly and Dad don't talk much, though according to Dad they've upgraded from 'are-we-still-related-if-we-don't-acknowledge-the-fact-that-we-share-grandparents' to semi-annual Christmas cards. Even then, Lydia's only met her Dad's family on four separate occasions, like Aunt Molly's birthday, or the Baptizing of Aunt Molly's first grandchild, which was an event that she had invited _everyone_ to, so it wasn't like there was a lot of room for Dad to feel flattered.

Lydia once asked why they weren't close. Dad said it was because his cousins (and his brothers and his sister and his parents and _their_ parents) were born magic, and her Dad just… wasn't.

("But you are magic," Lydia had replied, perplexed, "You're a wizard with numbers!"

"Not that kind of magic, Lyds," Her Dad was smiling now though, so Lydia beamed back, satisfied that she hadn't said the wrong thing.)

"Did Aunt Molly have another kid?" It's the only reason Lydia can think of that would result in a _phone call_. Aunt Molly _hates_ phones. "Did someone _die_?"

To Lydia's surprise, her Mom nods, not seeming to upset about the topic or the fact that they're going to be discussing it over breakfast, "Family friend, I think. _Practically family_ , your father says. I don't think he liked them very much."

"Because they were family and Dad wasn't, even though he is?"

" _Lydia_ ," Mom chides.

Lydia rubs her eyes and mutters, "It's _true_. I don't think _I_ like them either. _Dad's_ family and he doesn't even get treated like family. That's not fair."

"It isn't," Mom at least agrees, "But you can't say bad things about the dead, Lydia."

"Why not? It isn't like they can hear me!"

"It isn't polite,"

"Who am I offending?"

Dad enters the kitchen, snapping his flip phone shut and throwing it on the counter top; as far away from him as he can get it. "No one important," He answers Lydia shortly, shoulders tense and face that trademark red of his. "Just the bloody savior of the wizard world. Practically a nobody."

 _Ooooh_ , the 'W' word. Mom hates the 'W' word. True to form, she looks uncomfortable. "Were you invited to the funeral?"

"To the public memorial and the reception after the private funeral. That's my weekend gone. Those blasted wizards have no consideration for my work at all—"

"It's just a weekend, darling,"

Dad rolls his eyes and stabs his egg viciously, saying, "Molly only wants me at the reception because she _wants her family together_. _Apparently_ , her precious little surrogate daughter's death has reminded her of the _fragility of life_. 'I'm so sick of arguing, Aaron,' like I kicked _myself_ out—"

"Ginny's dead?" Lydia says, because she doesn't know what surrogate means ( _yet_ ) but she sure as heck knows the word _daughter_ , and Aunt Molly only has _one_ daughter. Apart from the red hair, Lydia looks nothing like Ginny, but Ginny is the _best_. If Lydia ever gets facial reconstruction surgery, she knows who she'll be looking like.

Mom shoots Dad a look. Dad rubs the back of his neck and sighs. "Ginny's not dead. It's Ginny's _partner_. Do you remember her? Black hair, green eyes, glasses? She had the lightning bolt on her forehead."

 _...But I still don't feel good about this. Ma'am, are you sure you'll just be investigating?_

 _Wouldn't engage if my life depended on it._

 _That's not funny._

Lydia groans at the pain behind her eyes. "No," She mumbles, because she didn't remember meeting anyone except Aunt Molly's youngest and older kids before she'd hid away in someone's room for the rest of the night. Everyone was loud, and they asked so many _stupid_ questions, but they got all quiet and awkward when she asked about their magic. It was a waste of her time.

"Well. She passed away last night. Do you want to come to the funeral?"

"Aaron," Mom says sharply, "you're not taking her there."

"Natalie…"

"We're not arguing about this. Lydia doesn't like your family, and for good reason. I won't have a bunch of wizards make _my_ daughter feel somehow _inadequate_ because she wasn't born with the ability to turn a teacup into a toad. Not again."

Dad doesn't argue, which would be surprising except he never argues with Mom about _this_. Mostly because he knows firsthand how not-fun it is to be a non-wizard surrounded by casual, flaunted magic.

 _Call him if you hear nothing from me after 45 minutes. No sooner. No later. Better to be safe than sorry._

Lydia moans. The not-argument happening between her parents stops. Mom's hand returns to her hair, and her Dad checks her forehead. "It isn't a fever,"

"Maybe it was the bacon," Mom mutters. Dad pauses, then carefully pushes his plate away from himself as inoffensively as possible. (He fails. It's pretty offensive.) "She didn't sleep well last night. I'll call the school and tell them she's having a day off. Can you look after her?"

"Natalie, you _know_ I'm swamped at work."

"Lydia's _sick_. Can't you just work at home?"

"Can't you? Just cancel your appointments or something,"

"I can't just _cancel on my clients_ , Aaron—"

 _Worry is good, though._

 _Healthy._

 _Gets you home at the end of a shift._

(Lydia's almost glad that this thrum of pain knocks her out, as long as it gets her out of the firing line.)

* * *

o.o.o

* * *

The house is empty when Lydia wakes up. There's a note on her bedside table, right beside a glass of lukewarm water that tastes like dirt and her breakfast, and some saltines. Lydia eats those gingerly as she reads.

 _Lydia_  
 _I'm sorry you have to wake up alone but your father and I couldn't get away from work. Make sure you drink lots of water and liquids, okay? There's an icepack in the freezer if your head hurts. Get some sleep!_  
 _Call if you need anything. I'll leave if I have to_  
 _Mom work: (199) 124-429_  
 _Dad work: (199) 329-590_  
 _XOXO,_  
 _Mom_

Lydia reads the message three times to make sure the remaining dizziness isn't causing her to read it wrong. Or maybe she just doesn't like herself. Either way: the words don't magically readjust, and her eyes still burn. Lydia hates crying. She'd never cry in front of someone.

But there's no one here ( _I'm sorry you have to wake up alone_ ) so it isn't like she's going to be teased about it.

It's lonely. The house is empty. It's school hours, so the streets are probably empty. Even Mrs. McKinley-their-neighbor-with-the-dog's dog isn't barking or throwing himself against a fence for fun.

Lydia's alone.

She kind of doesn't want to be.

Lydia sniffles and wipes her nose. She wants to ring her Mom just for the heck of it. She's extremely tempted to do it, actually, but mostly she just wants to go back to sleep. Lydia throws the note away from her and curls up on her side, just knowing that she won't be getting a good sleep.

 _And_ she's hungry.

This is the worst day _ever_.

There's a crinkling sound. Then: "Harsh."

Lydia curls up tighter, about to say something to the voice about how her parents love her and they're just busy right now, but if they would read the note, it's obvious her Mom would drop everything to tend to Lydia as soon as Lydia had a quick nap and called her—

Which is the approximate moment Lydia remembers that she's _alone_ in the house and the note didn't mention anything about a _British babysitter._

Lydia screams high enough to shatter glass and yanks the covers over her head. There's someone in the house! There's a stranger in the house and she's alone and there isn't a phone nearby and the stranger is _sitting on her bed reading her note_ , how long has Lydia been _sleeping_? Have they been there the entire time, _watching_?

Is Lydia going to _die_?

The stranger shifts. The bed moves. _The stranger is in her bed._

Astounded, the stranger mutters, " _You_ can hear me?"

"GO AWAY!"

"You can _hear me_?"

"I'LL CALL MY MOM!"

"You can hear me!"

"OF COURSE I CAN HEAR YOU—" Lydia tries to yell, but her voice wobbles, because she's crying extra hard now because she's _going to die_.

The stranger shifts again. "Wait. Are you _crying_?"

The stranger sounds so incredulous—

(Incredulous. Adjective. Means: skeptical, disbelieving.)

—that Lydia scowls through her tears, steadies her voice as best as she can (turns out, this isn't her strongest point), and hisses, "No! I'm not crying!"

"You sound like you're crying."

"I'm not!"

"Was it the note? Was it what I said? If i knew you could hear me, I wouldn't have said it."

"That doesn't make me feel better," Lydia has to say, before curling up tighter, "I'm crying because you're going to kill me!"

There's a pause. "What."

"I'm going to _die_."

"Erm… how positive of that are you?"

Lydia likes numbers, and she like showing off about it almost as much. "99%," she declares. "A stranger is in my house. There is a 99% chance of death!"

"For one of us, yeah, definitely, but not you. Erm. Promise."

"Promise?"

"Yeah, sure, promise. I'm not going to… to kill you. Or hurt you. I'm proper sorry I made you cry in the first place. Unless it was the note that made you cry?"

 _"I'm not crying,"_

"Right then, guess not. Can you even breathe from under there?" Lydia can't. She isn't about to give the probably-a-murderer the satisfaction, though. "I already promised I wasn't going to hurt you, Lydia,"

Lydia scowls. "How do you know my name?"

"I wouldn't be a very good best friend if I didn't know the Weasley family tree."

Lydia explodes from her cocoon to showcase her scowl in the right direction. The stranger is a tall woman with messy, afro-like hair, glasses, and green eyes. Her smile is a crooked, thin thing. She's wearing a long, knitted maroon scarf wrapped tightly around her neck. It's secure. She has a tanned hand keeping it in place regardless.

"I'm _not_ a _Weasley_ ," She says, "and neither is my Dad. We're _Martins_."

The stranger looks like she has a few things to say about that. She shrugs and looks away, using her free hand to mess with her poofy hair. "Sorry. You were at Molly's Baptizing with your Dad, weren't you? I met you there."

Lydia sniffs. "I don't remember you. Maybe you just aren't that important."

This, oddly enough, seems to make the stranger smile a bit. "Agree with you there, actually."

Lydia would smile, but she's still 70.56666% sure that she is going to die, and you don't smile at your future-murderers. Maybe she can use the saltines as a weapon? Crunch them up and throw them in the stranger's eyes? Like dirt, but saltier.

The stranger seems to read Lydia's discomfort and rushedly puts out her hand, cringes at the hand, cringes at herself, and must rethink the entire action at least seven times before she decides to just leave the hand in the air. "Harry. I'm Harry."

Lydia stares at the hand like it's a snake and mumbles, "What type of girl is named Harry?"

"It's a nickname,"

Lydia's disgust heightens. "For Harriet?"

"Erm, no. Hariel."

Oh. "That's not so bad," Lydia's never heard that one before. She'll have to research it if she isn't dead. Names have power though; meanings are important. When Lydia gets around to discover mathematical laws, she'll have to give it a unique, memorable name.

Lydia still doesn't shake the hand. Harry takes it back, looking both embarrassed and thoughtful about something. Lydia hopes it isn't her statistically-probably murder. That would really suck.

"If we shake hands and introduce ourselves, we aren't strangers anymore, and I'll be less likely to kill you. ... _Not_ that I was planning on it anyway, but…better to be safe than sorry."

 _Call him if you hear nothing from me after 45 minutes. No sooner. No later. Better to be safe than sorry._

 _Better to be safe than sorry._

Black hair.

Green eyes.

Hideous, truly yuck glasses.

Lightning bolt scar.

Holy—

With an icky, sticky feeling of _GROSS!_ crawling all over her body, Lydia says with complete certainty, "You're dead?!"

Well. For given meaning of the word, 'say'.

Harry goes still. She clears her throat, fumbles with her glasses, secures her already secured scarf, and says, very, very, _very_ carefully, "... That's certainly the popular theory." Lydia is _speechless_. She can't even think. She's an eight year old genius and she can't even _think_.

 _The dead stay dead. That's what they do. They die and they don't come back,_

And yet, Lydia can feel the dip in the bed where Harry-the-dead-girl-whose-funeral-was-this-weekend was sitting. Like, an actual weight. A human weight.

"On the bright side," Harry murmurs, "It's that much more unlikely that I'm going to kill you." Harry blinks owlishly, remembering something, awkwardly offering: "I'm sorry for making you upset earlier. And now, too, I suppose."

Lydia says, "This is a fever dream. A hallucination. You're not real."

"How do you know what the word hallucination means?"

"Hallucination, noun, means: a sensory experience of something that does not exist outside the mind, caused by various physical and mental disorders—"

"That's great, thanks," Harry interrupts, frowning, "I'm not a hallucination. I'm pretty sure, at least?"

"How sure?"

"Pretty."

"Statistically, then," Lydia huffs.

"About… uh… 12% sure."

"That's barely anything!"

"I only know elementary levels of math," Harry admits, "Not like that means much to you since you're a child genius. But I'm not good with numbers. What statistic suits you?"

"Percentage," Lydia corrects, and Harry's eyebrows twitch, "For the word 'pretty'? Like… 90%?"

"That's pretty high."

"You said you were pretty sure,"

"I'm British, Lydia, we underexaggerate."

"That's not a word," Lydia says, then, unsure, "is it?"

"The afterlife doesn't have a dictionary for me to use, sorry," Harry actually sounds sorry, which is the more bizarre part of everything. Harry's face pales a few shades. "Oh, Merlin. I'm dead. I'm _dead_? I'm— _I'm_ actually—this is real, and I'm dead, but I'm _not_ dead because I'm talking to Ron's second cousin's only daughter so I _must_ be alive?"

"Your funeral is this Saturday," helpfully informs Lydia. All information is good information, even if it isn't particularly _nice_ information.

Harry makes an odd choking sound and repeats, "My funeral is this Saturday. Because everyone believes I'm dead. I can't be dead. I'm talking to you and you're a _Squib_ , you don't have any magic,"

"I have magic." Lydia interrupts. Harry's eyes light up, which is a phenomenon that disappears pretty quickly when Lydia finishes with a proud, "I'm a _wizard_ with numbers."

Harry runs her fingers through her hair and says, strained, "There's no way _you're_ the _only_ person who can talk to me. There's—why _America_?"

"Maybe ghosts don't like the rain?"

Aforementioned ghost sighs. "How often do you think it rains in England?"

Lydia is honestly surprised by the question. "It _stops_?"

Harry nods to herself as if this is an answer she should have expected. She shoots to her feet. Lydia can see now that the ghost is outfitted in worn and torn washed jeans and a maroon sweater that matches her scarf, except the sweater has an emerald 'H' on the front that clashes horribly with the maroon. She looks comfortable for a dead person.

"I need to go. Sorry for making you cry."

"I _wasn't_ crying."

"Sure, right, still going with that? Do you want me to get you some water and more crackers before I leave? I'm not sure you're healthy enough to get out of bed."

Lydia could manage a trip to the kitchen easily but she doesn't want to if she doesn't have to. "Yes please. You're not _really_ leaving, are you?"

"I just said I was," Harry says slowly, like Lydia's an idiot or something.

Lydia might be, actually, because this is surprisingly distressing news. The bottom of her bed, where Harry was sitting, is already cooling down. Soon it'll be like she wasn't here at all. What if she isn't here now and Lydia's going crazy?

 _(What if it is a fever dream?)_

"... are you still waiting for me to murder you? Because I already said I wasn't going to do that."

Lydia mentally weighs the merits of what she's about to say and reasons that a babysitter is exactly what she needs right now, status as a not-baby disregarded. "You're going to leave me _alone_?"

Harry's eyes narrow. "... Erm,"

"I'm _sick_."

"I know, that's why I'm getting you some water and biscuits. Crackers." ... What? Harry rolls her eyes, concedes, "Saltines."

Why didn't she just say so? "So you're going to leave me behind."

"It sounds meaner when you put it like that," Harry sounds uncomfortable, "I'm not sure I'm the best person for the job. I'm… not even…" here, she squints, and her voice is remarkably steady for all that it is frustratingly slow, "... ' _alive_ ',"

"Then go," Lydia sniffs, turning away and curling up, "Leave. See if I care. I can take care of myself."

"I'm not… _abandoning_ you. I just need to find my friends. This needs to be fixed. It isn't… personal," Harry sounds a bit frustrated. At a bit of everything, too.

Don't bother, some part of Lydia says, with so much certainty that it frightens her. Don't bother. You're dead. You're definitely dead.

Before Lydia can come up with more dialogue, Harry sighs. It's a very drawn out sigh, largely personal. Lydia isn't meant to hear it when she's sulking but she hears it anyway and knows that no one alive could sound so tired of life. Dead. Definitely dead. She asks, "Do you want to do anything in particular? Or should I actually go through your personal belongings like a thief."

Lydia perks up. "You're staying?"

The woman shrugs awkwardly and messes her hair up. "For a bit. I gotta leave to sort this out, but I can make some time."

Lydia smiles and sits up. Harry stands awkwardly at the edge of her bed, fiddling with her hair, then her glasses, then her scarf, then back to her hair, seeming to realize how strange it is that she, an adult, is standing in the bedroom of an 8 year old she doesn't even know, possibly deceased. Possibly permanently deceased at that.

"Do you want to see who is faster at the Rubix cube?"

The dark-skinned woman's brows pinch together. She sighs, frustrated at herself, the world, and possibly Lydia, and practically growls, "What in Merlin's name is a _Rubix cube_."

Lydia grins, assured in her victory, and begins to explain to her new not-stranger-maybe-friend what 'in Merlin's name' a Rubix cube is.

* * *

o.o.o

* * *

"It was, he thought, the difference between being dragged into the arena to face a battle to the death and **walking into the arena** with your head held high. Some people, perhaps, would say that there was little to choose between the two ways, but Dumbledore knew - and so do I, thought Harry, with a rush of fierce pride, and so did my parents - that there was all the difference in the world."

* * *

o.o.o


End file.
